This Sat. April 29 Shreveport citizens can vote to re-authorize six ad valorem tax millages that have been on the books for many, many years.
The Perkins' administration let these millages expire, even though they included the anticipated $11.5 million dollars of revenue in the 2023 budget that the council adopted.
Ouch!!
Mayor Tom Arceneaux has been trying for well over a month to get the Shreveport city council to approve budgets amendments totaling $11.5 million, broken down as follows:
-Street repairs compiled in 2020 $9.5 million
-Blight remediation $1.5 million
-Lighting $500,000
Chief Administrative Officer Tom Dark had located that total sum of $11.5 million by his expert review of the city's budget.
Many departments had budgeted the full salaries and benefits of positions long vacant and very likely to never been filled. A good example is the Shreveport Police Department budget that has will over 100 vacancies that have been open for years, unfortunately.
So, guess what?
It’s not rocket science to realize that if the millages are NOT re-authorized, then the city's budget has an $11.5 million deficit in anticipated expenses over anticipated income.
And where could this deficit be easily filled?
Daaa....the proposed budget savings that the mayor wants to put in streets, blight remediation and street lighting will then go to budgeted expenses.
At the rate the council is making on the mayor's improvement package, it could next year before its finally approved.
In the meantime, repairs are not made, costs go up and citizens complain, and rightly so.